Amusements

Friday, December 03, 2004

The night I met the father of southwestern cuisine

The depths of my despair yesterday caused me to forget to mention that I saw a huge pack of turkey vultures crowding around some carnage as I drove through the Sonoma Valley on my way to work. I think the drive out every morning might just be the highlight of my day, because I get to see loads of hawks stalking the mice out in the vineyards, as well as an assortment of other neat animals. The hills are lush and green right now, the vines are a beautiful burnt orange, and the rains haven’t started yet. Every time I make the trip, I’m thankful that I’m not stuck in some slow-moving stream of vehicles on a massive interstate lined with anonymous office buildings outside Chicago. Instead I get to drive past the Cline Winery (who just put their Christmas lights up!), the Gloria Ferrer Champagne Caves, and thousands of rows of grapevines. There is something a little sad about grapevines, though – they always remind me of a crucifixion, tightly strung up to their wire fencing as they are. They could be all gnarly and beautifully irregular if treated more gently, but instead they are forced to conform to harsh, constrictive rows of wire. I guess it’s probably good for them, but it looks painful.

Work today receives a mixed review. I did some filing and rang up a few gift certificates, and then was assigned to type up many pages of recipes to prepare the packets for Mark Miller’s Coyote Café classes that are scheduled for tomorrow and Sunday. I had never heard of Mark Miller before, but I guess I own one of his cookbooks – Red Sage – because I remember seeing its cowprint pattern on my shelf. Apparently he Introduced The World to the Cuisine of the American Southwest. I’m trying to muster up some enthusiasm for this, because his classes sell out lightning fast and everybody seems to adore his food, but I can’t say that Southwestern has ever ranked very highly in my own personal food hierarchy.

And honestly, some of the recipes didn’t do much to change my mind. There was a particular dessert – Rhubarb Anise Crisp with Mexican Crema – that did not sound appealing at all to me. It sounds, frankly, rather nasty. But who am I to criticize? Mark Miller worked for Chez Panisse, and his Coyote Café has been open for 19 years. All I do is type up his recipes.

And type I did, for about three hours. Today marked yet another day in the history of my professional career in which I fielded numerous laudatory comments about the speed of my typing. Perhaps when I was 16 this was flattering; now being marked as the resident “typing whiz” is just depressing. Beware, because whenever a group of your coworkers gathers round your computer to feign enthusiasm and amazement at your typing ability, it means you will certainly be assigned to a succession of dull projects while the rest of the office takes a smoke break or plays basketball in the parking lot.

However, because the rest of my day at this particular job is filled with so little, the typing assignment was actually a somewhat pleasant change. Mark Miller is apparently a “high-maintenance” chef, which means that he fails to submit all the recipes on time, and likes to change things around at the last minute, causing the kitchen managers to tear their hair out trying to locate rhubarb in the middle of winter, or a specific brand of expensive aged tequila half an hour before the class is set to begin. I can see why he doesn’t have time to get all his shit together in advance, though – we had a nice little chat while he autographed books, and he regaled us with tales of his travel schedule. He flies to Asia once a month, was in Bangkok a week ago, and in the past two months has been to China, India, London, Barcelona and Buenos Aires. After this weekend he’ll head to Santa Fe, then Phoenix and Tucson and on from there. I wonder if he has a home.

I had ample time to ponder the difficulties that a cooking school must have in situations like this when the chef fails to get everything ready in advance; on the one hand, the chefs are their bread-and-butter, and the school needs to try to please them as much as possible so they’ll return and sell out more classes. On the other hand, they have to stay organized and please their customers by providing basics (like a recipe packet, for example), so that people will want to return. Plus, prominent chefs must have insane schedules, yet I assume most of them don’t make enough money to have personal assistants or secretaries to organize their responsibilities for them. Case in point: Mark Miller, the Father of Southwestern Cuisine, arrived in a rented subcompact and promptly locked his keys inside the car.

Anyway, we were still missing the recipes for Wild Mushroom Pasilla Sauce, Ultima Margaritas, Roasted Red Pepper Soup and Cinnamon Wild Rice by the time I left. We’ll see what happens tomorrow.